Narrator: [00:02] This is the Spacemakers.

 

Daniel Sih: Have you ever tried to change something in your life? To get fit, eat healthier, improve your work habits, or strengthen a relationship. What if the secret to lasting change wasn't more discipline, motivation, or willpower, but changing what you believe. In this special bonus episode of The Spacemakers, I'm joined by New York Times best-selling author, Nir Eyal, [00:32] to discuss his new book, Beyond Belief.

 

Nir Eyal: The most dangerous words in the English language is whatever comes after I am. I am this, I am that. Whatever it is, it's just like I am overdosing. Your brain will conform to that expectation.

 

Daniel Sih: Together, we'll explore how our beliefs shape what we see, feel, and do. And how taking ownership of our beliefs can help us create lasting change and make space for a more intentional, meaningful life.

 

Narrator: [01:03] This is the Spacemakers.

 

Daniel Sih: [01:10] Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Spacemakers Podcast, a podcast to help you live an intentional, meaningful life. My name's Daniel Sih, and I'm super excited because we are here for a bonus interview with New York Times best-selling author, Nir Eyal, who has written multiple books, such as Hooked and Indistractable. And we are going to talk about his newest book, Beyond Belief, which has just hit the New York Times bestselling list. [01:37] Now I first connected with Nir through a friend of a friend, and then I interviewed him in Sydney a number of months ago. So feel free to look up that podcast interview. But he was kind enough to actually endorse my newest book, Wise AI, co-authored with Paul Matthews. And during our conversations about the book about Wise AI and about how beliefs around AI shape our behaviour, he ended up saying, Well, why don't we do another interview on Beyond Belief? [02:03] We're going to talk about how beliefs are malleable and how we can change our beliefs. We're going to talk about how what we believe changes what we see, uh, what we feel and what we do.

 

And we're going to talk about how we might identify a limiting belief and then turn it around and experiment to go upstream as Nir describes in order to actually uh change not only what we think about the world and ourselves, but to experience a richer, better, more motivated life as a result. [02:32] Welcome, Nir Eyal to the Spacemakers.

 

Nir Eyal: I am honoured to be back. Thank you so much, Daniel.

 

Daniel Sih: Yeah, it's been such a delight to connect with you again and to read your new book, which is amazing. And I just heard that it hit the New York Times bestselling list. So beyond belief. Congratulations, that's huge.

 

Nir Eyal: It did. Thank you.

 

Daniel Sih: So you've written some brilliant books. I've read them all. I've read Hooked. I've read Indistractable. Uh, and yet they tended to be about technology and habit formation. [03:02] And yet, this new book, in my mind, it reads differently. It's it's got more stories, even though it's got heaps of research.

 

Uh, but it's a broader book, and it talks a lot a lot about beliefs and humanity in a bigger sense. Um I'm curious about the genesis of the book and how you came up with it.

 

Nir Eyal: So the the genus of the book was uh some strange phone calls I started to receive. So I uh I've been doing these office hours for years with anyone who [03:28] reads one of my books, if they want to call me and ask me any questions. You know, I'm I'm always honored when when someone wants to read some of my work, and so if they have a question, I love to answer them. So I make one hour every week Wednesday evenings, four four 15-minute blocks, and anyone can call and ask me anything as long as they've read one of my books.

 

Happy to, happy to work with them or or speak with them about anything they might have on their minds. And a few years ago, I started getting an unusual call that every once in a while, maybe one out of every 20 calls or so, [03:57] someone would say something like this. This is what the conversation would sound like. They'd say, Hey Nier, I read Indistractable, and I really liked it.

 

I really enjoyed it, but I just want to let you know it didn't work for me. And I'd say, oh, you know, tell me more. You know, I spent five years writing the book. There are 30 pages of citations to peer-reviewed studies, it's sold half a million copies.

 

Like I want to know what's what's not working for every reader so I can improve on it. So let's start step by step. Let's start with step one. How did step one go for you?

 

And they'd say, you know, um, uh, [04:24] funny you should ask. I I read step one. Uh I just didn't, I just didn't do step one.

 

I'd say, okay, no problem. I understand maybe that you didn't like that step, so maybe you skipped it. Okay, let's go to step two. How'd step two go for you? What'd you do? Uh uh, you know, um, I I read step two.

 

I definitely read step two. I just didn't do it. And so I started to wonder here, you know, these people would stand and wait for for months sometimes to get on a call together, and they'd uh they'd [04:53] they'd tell me about how the book that they had read but hadn't done anything about didn't work.

 

And I would kind of scratch my head after these calls and wonder what's what's going on? Is it is it my fault as an author? Did I not write a good enough book? Is it my readers?

 

You know, what's going on? And then I realized actually I do this, don't I? That I have dozens of books on my bookcase from books that I've read and haven't put into practice. I've watched [05:19] countless YouTube videos and listened to endless podcasts about all kinds of great advice.

 

I've even paid consultants and gurus to tell me what to do, and I haven't always done it. Why not? Like, isn't that such an interesting question of why is it that in this age of limitless information? We are drowning in information. I mean, every morning we read the newspapers and we read uh uh uh the the uh [05:43] Twitter and we read uh you know, six different publications and we look at YouTube and we get all this information. We have so much information telling us what to do, and yet so often we don't put it into practice.

 

So, what's the gap here? Why, why, despite knowing what to do, we don't do it? And so that kind of started this line of inquiry of what's missing here. And I would think what I discovered was that our concept of motivation is woefully incomplete. That most of us think that if I know what to do, the behavior, and I want the benefit, [06:13] well, I'll just do it, right? That's kind of classic economic incentives, right?

 

If I if I do this job description, I get this salary behavior to benefit. But if that were always true, then we would all have six-pack abs and be multimillionaires. That there's clearly something missing here. And what's missing is that motivation is not a straight line, motivation is a triangle. That in order to sustain our motivation, we not only need to know what to do, the behavior, we not only need to know the benefit, but we also have to have the belief. So the behavior, the benefit, [06:43] and the belief.

 

And the belief is actually what holds it all together. And I'll give you an example. If I work for a boss who I don't believe has my best interest at heart, maybe I don't believe they're gonna give me that promotion or that raise. Well, how likely am I to sustain my motivation to keep working for them or to do my best if I don't believe I'm gonna get the benefit?

 

Not very much. And conversely, if I don't believe in my own ability to do a particular behavior, [07:09] even if I know what to do, if I don't believe I can do it over the long term, I'm gonna quit. So, in order to sustain motivation, in order to accomplish what I know I can, in order to meet my full potential, in order to live a life uh that that I'm proud of that I don't regret, I need to master the power of belief. And so when I unlock that power, that changed everything for me. And so I wanted to do this deep dive into how do we master these these powers of belief [07:35] so that we can finally live the life we know would deserve.

 

Daniel Sih: Yeah, look, that makes sense, a lot of sense. Um, at the Spacemakers, I often talk about uh the idea that it's not what you hear that counts, it's what you do that counts.

 

It's it's the application of knowledge, and yet there are beliefs and behaviors and um perspectives and schemas that change whether we apply what we hear and even change how we interpret what we hear, which you talk about in your book. And I really like that. I mean, as a physiotherapist by background, I've spent lots of time with people who have uh [08:05] heard about exercises and who want to get fit and who are seeing me because they have pain and they have a real motivation to improve. And yet uh it it really is at that belief and motivational level. Uh it's that belief and motivational level that impacts people's ability to apply what they want to apply. And so I I see that in my old career. I see it as a productivity and time management consultant working with teams nowadays. Uh [08:31] it's the same idea.

 

You know, do you do you do exercises with your low back or do you actually improve your inbox management and time blocking? Uh, but it's all about habit change and behind all of that is belief. So I what I liked about your book is uh how clearly you describe the research and also the frameworks around how beliefs impact behavior. And I particularly like your framework that beliefs uh and and what we believe shapes what we see, what we feel and what we do. Uh [08:59] so maybe tell me a bit more about that. That's kind of the three parts of your book, but um, maybe it's not overall uh framing. I'd I'd love you to tell me about how beliefs impact the way we at least see, maybe feel and do. Absolutely.

 

Nir Eyal: Yeah. So maybe before I jump into that, let me tell you kind of just uh a framing for for those who haven't had a chance to read the book yet of why is it so important? So we talked about um, you know, what why motivation uh requires belief, but what [09:27] where does that lead into? You know, how how why is this so important? I think the reason it's so important is because when we want to understand why don't we fulfill our dreams? What separates the people who go on to do great things and are are proud of themselves and live a life that that uh is lived at their full potential versus those who suffer and who know that that they haven't met their full potential and struggle with whatever goals that they've [09:54] they've had for year after year on their to-do lists and their New Year's resolutions, like what separates those people?

 

And why is it that we can accomplish goals in one area of our life and don't in others? And so what is that distributing uh that that is that defining factor? And so a study that really blew my mind that I think um reveals what is the secret here was a study done by Kurt Richter back in the 1950s. And Richter did this very simple experiment. Uh, [10:18] you can't do these kind of experiments anymore.

 

Daniel Sih: It's better to say I know the experiments. You know the experiment. It's a fairly cruel experiment, but it's a good experience. experiment. It is fairly cruel. And It's a great example. Please keep going.

 

Nir Eyal: Yeah, but but it's worth it's worth learning from because look, it already happened. So we might as well learn from it. So that the the that the uh animals didn't die in vain. But here's what happened.

 

I'll I'll I'll try I won't make it too uh too graphic. So this biologist, Kurt Richter, back in the 1950s, he took wild rats, and he had a simple question. He wanted to know how long could these rats swim? [10:47] That's all I want to know. So he took these rats, he put them in a cylinder of water, and he just stood there with a stopwatch and timed how long before they gave up and drown.

 

Turns out about 15 minutes. But then he had another question. He wanted to know could he increase their persistence? Could he increase the amount of time that they swam for? And so he took a new group of rats, put them in the same cylinders, but this time, right before he knew they were about to give up, right at the 15 minute mark, he reached in, pulled out the rat, [11:17] dried it off, let it catch its breath, and then plunk back into the water it went.

 

And he did this a few times. He conditioned the rat to expect that if it persisted, salvation might be possible. And it turns out that the rat did become more persistent, it did increase the amount of time it swam for, but how long it swam for is incredible. So most people, when they guess, how much longer do the rat swim for? It went from 15 minutes of nonstop swimming, how much longer? [11:46] Some people will say 30 minutes, 100% longer. Some will say an hour, four times longer, which would be mind-blowing if there's any kind of intervention that could make you four times more persistent.

 

That would be amazing. But the rats didn't swim for 60 minutes. The rats swam for 60 hours. 60 hours of non-stop swimming. Insane, incredible.

 

240 times more persistent. Now, why is this so remarkable? Because we need to ask ourselves what changed? Their [12:15] bodies hadn't changed. They didn't all of a sudden become Arnold Schwarzenegger rats, they didn't become super strong in some way. Or Michael.

 

Daniel Sih: I'm not sure he could swim anyway. Yeah, maybe Michael will be able to do it. Yeah, that's true.

 

Nir Eyal: Michael felt that, right? I think Schwarzenegger would probably just sink. But anyway, yeah. But so their bodies hadn't changed. The experiment hadn't changed. So as much as we talk about the environment conditioning behavior wasn't the environment, same experiment. What changed? The only factor left, we can't ask the rats, obviously, but we think the only variable left is that something changed in their minds. [12:45] Because the 60 hours was always there within them.

 

They always had the 60 hours, but something unlocked that capability. And that's a lesson for each of us. So my question earlier that I asked of what defines who succeeds and who fails, or why we succeed at some goals and not others?

 

What is it? Well, the number one determinant of whether you succeeded a goal is whether or not you quit. Obviously, you don't need a PhD for that. It's whether or not you quit. It's because [13:13] persistence doesn't guarantee success, but quitting guarantees failure. So the number one determinant, it's not how smart you are, it's not how much money you have, it's not whether you know the right skills, it's whether or not you quit.

 

How do we harness that, right? How do we how do we learn to not quit? Now, not that quitting is always the wrong thing to do. There are definitely conditions where you definitely want to quit. Lord knows I've quit all kinds of stuff. And we can talk about when is it the right time to quit?

 

But what we find is that far too many of us [13:42] quit far too soon than is good for us. So if you could unlock that 60 hours that's within you already, as opposed to quitting in 15 minutes, what could you accomplish? What relationships could you repair? What projects could you finally complete? What dreams could you accomplish if you could unlock this this magic switch that was unlocked in these rats through the power of belief?

 

And so that's where I dive into okay. Well, what are the three powers of belief? It's the power to change what you see, [14:10] and I'm not saying metaphorically, but literally to change what you're able to see, what you feel, not only your feelings, your psychological state, but also your physiological feelings, right? How you experience pain and suffering. This is also determined by your beliefs to a large extent.

 

And finally, what you do. We call this a sense of agency. So beliefs determine what you see, what you feel, and what you do. And it turns out that that you can change what you see, feel, and do by changing your beliefs.

 

Daniel Sih: Well, [14:39] I've had this conclusion for a while, actually, that uh beliefs are malleable. You have the ability to shift and change who you are and how you see the world. Um, which, you know, as a 20-year-old, I probably wouldn't have said that. You know, I was a bit more black and white. I had strong opinions uh like many of us do. Uh and yet as I've become older, there are things I used to believe strongly that I've just changed my mind on because of experience, because of evidence. And it's actually quite a freeing idea. [15:08] Yeah, that probably is.

 

Nir Eyal: What comes to mind? I'm just curious. What is there any beliefs that you've changed over the last few years?

 

Daniel Sih: So health would be one of them. Um, that's probably a big story. Do I share that one? Uh go for it. Why not? I'll share a story. I'll share a story. So I uh in my 20s, I was I was pretty unhealthy. So I um I had a lot of [15:29] pain, a lot of neck pain. Uh I felt stiff a lot of the time. And I suppose I just had this sense that I was just going to get more and more unwell as I got older. And uh when I look back at that, you know, my dad had ankylosing spondylitis, which is a chronic inflammatory disease. It's what the not uh the hunchback of Notre Dame had. And so when I grew up, I saw him in bed groaning on inter sed and painkillers, and he actually died early because of that disease.

 

Uh and [15:59] this is a long story. But when I was 12, I got diagnosed with the gene marker, and a specialist in their wisdom said I had a 90% chance of getting the disease, which isn't true. Uh people with the disease have uh are 90% likely to have the gene marker, but it doesn't work the opposite way.

 

Interesting. Uh would have been helpful if I got the right advice. So I suppose I grew up with this sense that I would be unwell. And I think that was reinforced by my family in particular. [16:25] I was at an event one day, it was actually a spiritual event. I was praying and I was um in a kind of a worship setting, and I just had this very physical, spiritual experience. Uh, you know, you might even say an out of body experience. And I just had this um insight that I had grown up being a sick person, and I actually saw this is a bit bizarre, but I saw a picture of um I saw an image of clouds, which were great, and then they moved, and behind it was blue sky. [16:53] And I just had this deep sense that actually my identity as a sick person as someone in pain isn't who I am, and that behind that I'm actually really healthy and strong.

 

Amazing. So it literally changed my mindset, and I started to live into that. Um I stopped, you know, Celebrex. Uh I changed the way I saw myself, and I started acting differently. I suppose I saw that story in the book that I read. So look, it's my own story, but um [17:21] by changing at a deep level the belief that I'm unwell and not strong. Uh it has allowed me to not have any sick days for the last five years and to be healthy and strong.

 

Um Incredible. And I do believe that that is uh a spiritual, emotional uh mental shift that led to a change of behavior, which is what I see in your book. [17:44] Do you have any thoughts about that?

 

Nir Eyal: Yeah, I know I think I think it's such a great demonstration of exactly these principles. So you do, in fact, have the gene? Yes.

 

Daniel Sih: Yeah, the gene's still there. And it puts me at high risk of inflammatory issues. Rheumatologists said that uh the symptoms I had are probably from the gene. Uh but my mindset's changed.

 

Nir Eyal: It's so interesting. There was it reminds me there's a story in um it's a great book I'm I'm reading right now. It's on my kill [18:13] Kindle called The Age of Diagnosis. And she talks about uh a patient that she had, it's written by uh by a doctor, a neurologist, uh, about a patient who had a kind of a similar story where her mother, I believe it was. I'm I'm kind of telling this secondhand, but essentially her her mother had a a disease that if you have the gene, 100% chance you will have the disease, 100%. This woman was pregnant when she found out that her mother her her mother's symptoms were caused by this gene, and she didn't want to know, [18:42] she didn't want to take a test on herself because she knew that if she if the gene appeared, it would mean 100% that she would have the disease.

 

So she ignored it. She had her child, her child grew up, and then as she started to age, she started noticing similar symptoms as her mom. Uh, and and it became so bad that she couldn't travel for work. She started to ha have the memory issues, she started to have even physical symptoms. All of these symptoms were exactly like what she saw in her mom. [19:09] And she was absolutely convinced that, well, you know, I guess I I have the gene as well. And she had never taken the test until one day she did actually take the test and she didn't have the gene at all. That this was completely psychosomatic. And there's a there's an even better demonstration that I mentioned.

 

Daniel Sih: And did she change as a result of that? I don't know.

 

Nir Eyal: I haven't gotten to that part of the book yet. I can't speak on that. But I will tell you another incidence that also blew my mind. Uh, there's a uh a research literature case study [19:38] about a guy by the name of Mr. A. He's anonymized, and and in the literature he's called Mr. A.

 

And Mr. A had a very bad breakup with his girlfriend, and he decides that he wants to end his life. And so he goes to his medicine cabinet and he pulls out a bottle of antidepressants and he takes the entire bottle. And as he's swallowing the last pill, he changes his mind. He decides he wants to live after all. He rushes to the neighbor's house, He says, You have to take me to the hospital. They rush him to the emergency room.

 

When he gets to the emergency room, he collapses on the floor. [20:06] And the last thing he's able to tell the doctors is, I took all my pills, I took all my pills, help me. They look at the pill bottle, and they're trying to figure out what did he overdose on. Meanwhile, they're racing him to the operating room to figure out how to help him with this overdose. And they notice that when they take his vital signs, his blood pressure is dangerously low, his heart rate is falling, and he's going in and out of consciousness. They [20:33] try and figure out okay, what is this medication? What's this antidepressant that he took? And there's no name on the bottle. It just has a phone number. So they call this phone number and they say, you know, this is an emergency situation. What is this medication that this person took? They look him up on the computer and they say, actually, you know, this person was in a clinical trial for this antidepressant, and he was actually in the placebo group.

 

So Mr. A, who had exhibited all these physiological symptoms, had never [21:03] taken any medication. He'd taken an entire bottle of placebo pills, which have which are completely inert. And so why do I tell this story? This is a demonstration of what's called the no SIBO effect. That when we believe we are going to experience certain physiological or psychological symptoms, oftentimes it becomes so.

 

And so whenever we say, you know, I am overdosing, or I am whatever label, I mean, that the most dangerous words in the English language is whatever comes after I am. [21:33] Yeah. Right.

 

I agree with you on that. I am this, I am that. Whatever it is, it's just like I am overdosing. Your brain will conform to that expectation. So when you told yourself, I am a healthy person, right? You're going to live accordingly. Now, of course, we we can't make up facts. Facts are not.

 

Daniel Sih: Yeah, we're not talking about just positive self-help.

 

Nir Eyal: It's not positive energy, it's not my breakfast. It was a different experience. There was something that was at a much deeper.

 

Daniel Sih: [22:00] more rudimentary level that actually allowed me to change my perspectives and shift my mindset, As opposed to, hey, I'm strong, I'm fit, I'm good looking, therefore I will be. Right. And you talk about not manifesting in your book, right?

 

Nir Eyal: Exactly. So this is why it's super important to differentiate what we're talking about here. So facts are objective truths. There are things that are true that you cannot change. So the world is more like a sphere than it is flat.

 

Sorry, flat earthers, that's a fact. It doesn't care what you believe. On the other end of the spectrum is faith. [22:29] Faith is a conviction that does not require evidence.

 

God rewards the righteous. There's no evidence needed there for a person of faith, nor should there be. It's a it's a matter of faith. But beliefs are something else. Beliefs are convictions that are open to revision based on new evidence. The revelation that I had writing this book, and I think uh people who read it also will kind of have their minds blown, is that unlike faith, which we almost never change, unlike facts, which you cannot change, our beliefs are malleable. [22:58] We have the right to change our beliefs.

 

Even if we're not sure if they're true. This is the thing. Did you know with a hundred percent certainty that because you have this gene that you will get the disease? No, it's something that happens in the future.

 

Okay, this is a defining trait of beliefs versus facts. If it, if it's already happened, different story, right? It's happened. It's a fact. But if it's something about what will happen in the future, or even in the present, it's a belief. If we can pick and choose our beliefs, [23:27] why are we picking the beliefs that harm us? Why are we being like this woman who I talked about earlier who believed that she had this disease and started showing the symptoms?

 

Or the man who believed he was overdosing and started and passed out, right? We're if we have the choice to choose and we don't know the future, the future is still uncertain. Pick the ones that serve us rather than hurt us. Because when you believe I'm a fundamentally healthy person, not a fundamentally sick person.

 

Let me give you another example. We know that people [23:58] who have positive views about aging, positive views about aging, live on average seven and a half years longer. This was a study conducted at Yale. Seven and a half years, Daniel, to put that in perspective, seven and a half years is more than the effect of diet, of exercise, or quitting smoking. So for all the public service announcements you've heard about how you should eat right and exercise and quit smoking, having a positive view of aging blows all that out of the water. [24:25] And you we never talk about positive views of aging.

 

Daniel Sih: So tell me what that looks like in practice. Yeah.

 

Nir Eyal: So what does that look like? So someone who defaults into what most people say, at least that's what I hear a lot of people saying, which is that aging involves inevitable decline. Uh, I'm having a senior moment, or, oh, these aches and pains, I just can't do what I used to do, right? Like these scripts that we keep repeating to ourselves, why aging involves inevitable decline? A positive view of aging in this study was something like [24:54] growth is possible at any age. Just that simple nuanced difference.

 

Growth is possible at any age versus aging involves inevitable decline. Now, which is true. They're both true, right? They're both true.

 

But which one is your default? When you have new data, no new information in your life. Do you interpret it as, ah, there you go again? Aging involves inevitable decline. It's only going to get worse from here. It's the best it's ever going to be. It's only downhill. Versus, [25:23] do you believe, hey, I can grow at any age?

 

Now, turns out if you have that positive belief that growth is possible at any age, if that is your default belief, you will live seven and a half years longer. I mean, that's mind-blowing. Like that should be front page news.

 

Everybody needs to know this. Now, why does this happen? It's not because you know the your beliefs are vibrating at the vibrations of the universe and your mitochondria as being alive. That's nothing like that.

 

Okay. [25:52] It's nothing magical, it's nothing mystical, there's nothing supernatural going on here. It's not about any kind of cosmic vibrations. It's that beliefs change your biology. But the way they change your biology is not through magic, it's through behavior. So it turns out that someone who believes that growth is possible at any age is much more likely than the person who believes aging involves inevitable decline to volunteer in their community, make new friends, [26:20] go in go into the garden and get some exercise and sunshine. They're more likely to do things that make them healthy. So behaviors change biology via behavior.

 

Sorry, did I say that right? Beliefs change your biology via behavior. So that's the lesson for all of us, that we can choose either one of those two beliefs. Which one is more likely to spark the behavior that actually makes us healthier? And so we can pick.

 

Daniel Sih: [26:47] And this is something called enjoyed in your book where you said, you know, how do you know whether a belief is a limiting belief or uh I don't know, a life-giving helpful belief? Yeah, a liberating belief. And it is based on uh whether it leads to positive behaviors. I mean, tell me, tell me about how you can decide whether a belief is limiting and how you might go about shifting that belief deliberately. Yeah.

 

Nir Eyal: So let's define what a limiting belief is. A limiting belief is a belief that decreases your motivation [27:17] and increases your suffering. That's the definition of a limiting belief. So when I believe aging involves an inevitable decline. Things are only going to get worse from here.

 

What's my motivation to work on my health? Way lower. And what's my suffering look like?

 

Way higher. And so I'm much more, I'm much less likely to do the things that would make me healthier when I have a limiting belief. Whereas if I have a liberating belief, the opposite of a limiting belief, a liberating belief, [27:46] increases my motivation and decreases my suffering. So the biggest message I can give people is that beliefs are tools, not truths.

 

Beliefs are tools, not truths. Many times in life we want to base our decision making on the facts. But facts haven't happened yet in our life, right?

 

We don't know what will happen yet. And so our predictions about the future, how we decide what to do, all the important stuff, day to day, [28:16] is decided not based on facts. They're based on predictions about the future. They're based on beliefs about what I'm capable of doing. And so if we can pick and choose, we need to find those limiting beliefs, which is the hard part. We can talk about how to do that.

 

We need to ask ourselves whether they are serving us or hurting us, come up with liberating beliefs, and then adopt the ones that actually make us better off, that increase our motivation and decrease our suffering. And that's [28:43] that's what the process is like. Now, the difficulty is to answer your earlier question about like, well, how do we do this? The hard part is that limiting beliefs are always hidden. Yeah.

 

Daniel Sih: By that very nature.

 

Nir Eyal: By the very nature. This is this is the trick that your brain plays on you. You see, your brain is not concerned with whether you're happy, with whether you're flourishing, with whether you're meeting your full potential, your brain could care less. Your brain wants to keep you alive. That's what your brain is most concerned with. [29:13] So the best way to keep you alive is to keep you doing and believing whatever you believed and what you did in the past.

 

Why? Because probabilistically, if it worked before, it's gonna work again. So your brain is constantly pulling you back to passivity. It's constantly pulling you into whatever you used to do and believe. Okay, no matter how hard you try, that will be your default because your brain is making predictions about the future. And to predict the future, it needs to look at the past, what happened to you before, [29:43] which means that all of us are carrying around these limiting beliefs that served us at some point, but no longer do.

 

But to us, they feel like facts. So when we ask ourselves, why am I not going to the gym like I say I will? Why am I not being fully present with my family? Why am I not active in my religious community or building that business or achieving that dream? I know I can do it, but why am I not doing it? It's always because of some ingrained limiting belief [30:12] that you haven't assessed, which to you feels like a fact. I'm not ready yet.

 

I need more information. There's no time, right? How many times do I tell ourselves this? And it's not a fact. It's not one of Newton's laws. It's just a belief. So the difficulty is that limiting beliefs are like your face. If I told you look at your face, you can't look at your face. You can look at your hands, you can look at your feet. You can't look at your face. Because in order to look at your face, you need something outside of you.

 

You need a mirror [30:40] in order to reflect. And it's the same thing when it comes to our limiting beliefs. Interestingly, just like we can see everyone else's face, we can see everybody else's limiting beliefs, right? You can tell me your your spouse's limiting beliefs and your kids' limiting beliefs and your colleagues, your boss, you know all their limitations, but you can't see your own. Because to you they feel like facts, but they're not facts, they're just beliefs.

 

Daniel Sih: Well, [31:10] I suppose even when I hear you, I think there's something that sits behind the whole lot, which is you you do need a belief that helps you understand that your beliefs can be malleable and that what you believe isn't necessarily true, uh, that you have the ability to shift and change beliefs. Um where actually I would probably differ in terms of the language I use compared to you is I do think that faith is both often based on experience uh and you can also change faith. So I think faith is a belief that can change and shift. [31:40] In fact, most people I know who have had long-term faith have changed their faith and belief. Otherwise, they don't stay in faith. It's not an inert um uh immovable belief. It's something that does change and shift over time as well. But but the overarching idea I 100% agree with you on. So, how do you how do you develop a framework that helps you realize, oh, I can change how I see the world?

 

Yeah. In fact, I have self-delusion a lot of the time and I have the freedom [32:07] to change my self-delusion or my beliefs if they're not serving me. Uh and then, and then how do you do it?

 

Nir Eyal: So let's let's talk about the faith part because I'm I'm actually getting your perception as well. So when I say faith, I don't mean a religion. I mean a conviction. So if it changed, it's no longer faith. Because faith is defined as a conviction, which does not require evidence. So if there's something in your life that it doesn't matter what evidence I would present you, [32:36] you're not gonna change. Could I present any evidence to you that God doesn't reward the righteous if that's an element of faith for you? There's no amount of evidence that I could present to you to change that conviction. Well, now it's a matter of faith. It does not require evidence for me to hold on to that conviction. If it changed, it's a belief, which is which is it's by the way, none of this is judgment. None of this is good or bad. It's just a taxonomy. We're just defining categories.

 

Daniel Sih: No, look, I think it's it's a helpful category to put belief in the center [33:05] and then see it as a way of changing and shifting how you see the world.

 

I I'd probably even separate my experience of uh you might say blind faith, which may be what you're describing, where it's almost superstition and it might even be based against what you see in reality, uh and and then maybe a faith which I see is more malleable, but you know, we're probably splitting hairs here.

 

Nir Eyal: A big part of of the book was me coming around to practices like prayer. I never used to pray uh growing up, and now I pray [33:36] because I lowered that restriction. So before I would not pray unless I could, unless I had the conviction that everything in the holy book was a fact. And I wasn't willing to make it an element of faith.

 

So I had to make it a fact. It turns out I was being stupid, that I was missing out on the amazing power of prayer, that prayer has unbelievable psychological benefits. Whether or not we talk about the whole supernatural element of religion at all. The power of prayer [34:06] to me is incontrovertible.

 

Whether or not you have faith. So why wouldn't we do it? Why? Because beliefs are tools, not truths. And so if praying makes me a better person, helps me serve others, helps me reduce suffering and increases my motivation to be a better person, why wouldn't I do it? So I was being very closed-minded and thinking, well, if it's not a fact, I don't want anything to do with it. But sometimes that's that's not a good idea.

 

Daniel Sih: I've met a lot of people and seen it in my own life, actually, where uh [34:33] you don't want to try something new because you don't know if you believe in it or not. And yet belief doesn't actually work that way. And I'm using belief probably more in a faith setting, but uh typically people act their way into believing in a religious setting, as in any setting that uh if you pray regular, you start to believe in the power of prayer. If you engage in a community regularly, well, then you start to experience belonging. Uh if you start to give regularly, then you start to become a person who believes in generosity. [35:01] So I think uh faith practices at least or religious practices are ones where you you don't start them because you believe you believe because you practice that's that's the power of community.

 

That's right. Your journey of how you can you can pray or or try spiritual practices simply because you want to see what they feel like. That's right and you don't have to believe it all. I quite like the expression that John Wimber said that you can eat the meat and spit out the bones and I think that's the case with [35:30] both religion and life. You know, if you have to believe everything you won't ever learn from anyone because everyone is faulty and there's something wrong with everything. Right.

 

Nir Eyal: And I think this is this puts so it's interesting that you what your insight there so I I came across that very insight when I spoke to five religious leaders and I I went to five of them and I I it sounds like a setup for a joke but this is really what I did. I went to five I went to a rabbi, a priest, an imam, a swami, and a monk walk into a bar, right?

 

I went to [36:00] I went to all five and I asked them all the same exact question. Can I pray even if I have doubts about God? And I thought they would say get out of here heretic, right? like blasphemer, get out of here. None of them said that. In fact, many of them expressed that that questioning and doubt is part of the faith process right? It's how to deepen your faith in many ways is to question and say look these are things I don't want to necessarily need or I need I don't need to question [36:28] and these are things I do need to question.

 

And so that process can be very helpful. And you know the the one of the most impactful things the rabbi actually told me he said look first of all I you know when I asked him this question I thought he'd be very offended that I I had doubts. In fact he said uh he says something like so there's this omnipotent omniscient force out there that you don't have any doubts about that's just [36:54] clear as day to you right like no doubts at all really so of course you're gonna have doubts right like it is supernatural claims requires supernatural evidence.

 

Like you of course you're gonna have doubts. But furthermore he said in the Old Testament in Exodus when the Israelites are on Mount Sinai, they receive the Ten Commandments right? They receive the Ten Commandments and what do they say? They say naase, which translates into we will do and we will hear [37:23] which is exactly backwards. If you think about it, when I am trying to convince you to do something, I have to first tell you what to do. You have to hear it and then you will do it if you agree with me. But that's not what the Israelites say they say first we will do and then we will hear. And that's not a mistake according to the rabbi that that what it what this is telling us and the wisdom that I only learned at 48 was that exactly what you said that the practice itself [37:52] gives us the lessons. And so we can release ourselves from what I used to do, which is this this well if it's not a fact I don't want to touch it until it's proven to be true. I lowered that bar to say well if it serves me beliefs are tools not truths it can still have a place in my life which has greatly benefited me. I think the lesson here is not only for the adherents it's not only for people like me who, you know, we we we know that people who don't pray [38:18] are missing out on these psychological benefits of prayer. So but the but the responsibility is not only I think on people like me, it's also on religious institutions to not have this purity test of well you have to actually have blind faith in everything we say or don't come in here. So I think it's it's twofold but it's up to I think you know what who the people I'm writing for are the people like me who were gravely missing out by not being uh by not having these practices which have so many psychological benefits. And so the the the big lesson for me is that prayer works [38:46] with or without faith that doesn't necessarily have to be a requirement if it if it if you are praying with faith, wonderful you're getting so many benefits from it. But for people who have questions, consider whether there might be a place for this in your life.

 

Daniel Sih: Yeah that's fantastic. I wasn't going to go to prayer or religion because actually this podcast is for the majority of my listeners who are not remotely religious and probably not interested in religion but hopefully the ideas of how do you think about beliefs and how do you shift your beliefs [39:15] is deeply relevant to everyone and that's why I love your book because you wrote you wrote the book for anyone who wants to rethink their limiting beliefs and to find new motivations in the way they want to live.

 

So let's get practical as we as we wrap up what advice might you give to listeners if they find themselves in a place where they're like oh maybe my beliefs can change maybe I do have some self-limiting beliefs and maybe [39:43] if I allowed my beliefs to shift then I might see things differently I might feel things differently and I might act differently. Yeah.

 

Nir Eyal: So so this is so we're getting to the to the best part here at the end. But uh I think this is the this is the practice you need before you buy another self-help book, before you buy another business book, before you buy take any more advice. Because I'm telling you, it's like a leaky bucket. That the more the advice goes in, the more the wisdom goes out, the more it it leaks out, [40:12] unless you have the right beliefs in place. You have to install those first. I'm telling you, it's a waste of time to learn more information.

 

Daniel Sih: Not only is it a waste of time, but you are practicing not applying information.

 

Nir Eyal: So you are literally reinforcing at a neural pathway level the ability to listen and not do anything about it. Yes, that's right. It's counterproductive. Yeah.

 

Nir Eyal: That's right. And it's it's it's what I call pseudo-work. It feels like I'm being productive [40:40] because you know, I'm reading another self-help book or I'm reading another business book, or I'm listening to a productivity podcast.

 

And if it's not changing my life, if I'm not doing anything differently about it, what is it for? So first you have to install the right beliefs because we know what's going to happen if you don't. So, how do we do that? So, so this is a process that's called inquiry-based stress reduction. I didn't make it up. This is a scientific practice, a practice that's been now scientifically validated. It actually was codified by a woman by the name of Byron Cady, who I really admire her work.

 

And and really, [41:09] she was inspired by a technique that's over 2500 years old that Aristotle used to practice a very similar technique. And what this technique does is it asks you first and foremost to look at what is the area of your life that you want to improve. Okay, what where are you stuck? So the next the next book you're gonna buy about how to improve your life, what's the topic of that book, right? If you could have a magic wand that that fixes an area of your life, is it that broken relationship that you want repaired? Is it the business you want to start? Is it the book you want to write? Is it the uh your [41:36] your health that you want to change? Whatever.

 

So think of that first. What is the area of your life? By the way, Daniel, do you have one in your life? Do you have a uh something that where you're stuck in some way we could do it with you?

 

Daniel Sih: I just got stuck on you saying book I want to write. And I'm like, no, I need to stop writing books.

 

Nir Eyal: Yeah. But is there anything in your life that you're it doesn't have to be? We don't have to make you into a case study. Sometimes it's kind of fun to do. to do.

 

Daniel Sih: No, I'll go with that. Look, I have after reading your book, uh, both my wife and I have talked about the [42:05] the idea that we actually do have language around aging, which is unhelpful. That yeah, is similar to what you said.

 

I do believe that life will be good and that I'll keep being strong, but we also do talk about feeling old and getting slow, or you know, those kind of um throwaway lines. I'm noticing them more and I'm being aware of them, I suppose.

 

Nir Eyal: Fantastic. Okay, so we could take one of those. We could say, so what is one of those? So the an area of your life [42:34] where it's causing you suffering in some way. So it could be, let's say, with your health and well-being. So what's a belief about something that feels true about aging related in your life? Is there like a belief that you feel like, you know, I I I know I can do this, but I don't do it because fill in the blank. Uh I what's the behavior you want to do? Is there is there something you'd want to change in your life in terms of a behavior or a goal or uh a new practice?

 

Daniel Sih: [43:03] I can't think of it at that level. In fact, I mean, I'm the fittest I've been and I exercise really regularly. It's probably more projecting into the future the idea that maybe I won't be as fit as I am now.

 

Nir Eyal: So and does that affect your current behavior in any way?

 

Daniel Sih: It probably doesn't because I focus more on my behaviors right now, but it probably does make me anxious about the future when I don't need to be. So it may not work within your framework.

 

Nir Eyal: [43:28] So I'll tell I'll tell folks the process, and then you can read in the book exactly how to do this for yourself. But essentially what you're gonna do is you're gonna ask yourself these four questions that come from inquiry-based stress reduction. So this is answering your question, Daniel of how does one change their beliefs? You you you look at the area of your life where you're feeling suffering.

 

[43:47] Okay, whatever that might be. I'm not exercising when I know I should. I'm I haven't written that book, I haven't started the business, I haven't repaired the relationship, whatever it might be, whatever area of your life where you feel you're experiencing suffering, you write down the belief.

 

I don't have enough time, I'm not good enough, that person is a jerk, uh uh that I was traumatized, I this, whatever you believe is a fact of why you're not doing whatever it is that that would decrease your suffering, why you're not able to accomplish that thing. [44:17] And then what we're gonna do, we're gonna ask these four basic questions, which are which are all in the book, which prompts us towards what's called a turnaround. And a turnaround is where we collect a portfolio of perspectives. We're not gonna change our mind. The brain hates changing its mind. We're just collecting a portfolio of perspectives, different possible beliefs. And then what we're gonna do, the the last step here is to adopt one of those beliefs on a temporary basis. We're just gonna walk around our day-to-day life, [44:44] believing that thing as if it were true.

 

Because it is, right? Aging is uh involves an inevitable decline versus uh I can grow at any age. Both are true. Which one do you want to adopt? Which one do you want your default belief to be?

 

Daniel Sih: There is one that I've been practicing. I ran realize that one of my uh limiting beliefs is that I have a low pain tolerance, which I don't know why I think that.

 

And I thought about it. I'm like, actually, I work out really hard at the gym. I do blood flow restricted training, which hurts.

 

[45:14] So now I'm just telling everyone I have a high pain tolerance. Okay. Beautiful. And I expect that to be true. So I've been practicing that already as a result of your book.

 

Nir Eyal: Oh, really? You've done that since since the book. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. So you used to believe I have a low pain tolerance. What does that do? Here, let's do the test of whether that still is.

 

Daniel Sih: It's dumb, right? Yeah. Well, well, it I mean, your brain adopted that limiting belief at some point because it served you, right? Your brain is trying to protect you. And what better belief [45:40] to protect you than I have a low pain tolerance?

 

Because if I believe I have a low pain tolerance, how likely am I to put myself in positions of possible pain? Of pain. Yeah. Right. But then again, you know, why do you want to walk through life worried that you don't have a high pain tolerance?

 

Nir Eyal: Right. And so the the a lot of the book is about pain and how pain is separate from suffering. And so pain is just signal, pain is information, but suffering is the interpretation of that signal. And what we find is that that chronic pain is that system gone haywire. [46:10] So fibromyalgia, uh, you know, all these exclusionary diagnoses, like insomnia, even ADHD, depression, anxiety, a lot of these maladies are the overfixation on the pain and interpreting it as suffering. And that doesn't necessarily have to be true. All pain is real and all pain is in the brain, because where else could pain be?

 

So carrying around a belief like I have a low pain tolerance is going to make you behave a certain way. It's going to make you fixate on, oh, there you go. You see, you see?

 

Huh? Hi, I have a low pain tolerance, [46:40] which is going to increase your attention to that that uh that piece of information, which is going to increase how you experience pain and therefore reinforce the very belief that that is limiting you. Versus, well, let me try on this different belief. Let me do this turnaround and ask myself, wait a minute, have I ever had a higher pain tolerance? Yeah, actually, when I'm when I'm really into something in the right context, I have a high pain tolerance. So, you know, what if you're if you're experiencing heart palpitations and uh [47:09] you start sweating and your muscles are sore, if that happened right now during this conversation, well, that would be terrible.

 

We'd have to rush you to the hospital. But if you're in the gym, those same exact physiological factors means you're getting a great workout. So it's based on our judgments of those that those pieces of information, not uh the it's not it's not an objective truth.

 

It's totally subjective interpretation. So that's the process. We take out our limiting belief, we analyze it, whether it's hurting us or serving us, [47:35] and then we do a turnaround to see is there a portfolio of perspectives that could help us.

 

And this is all detailed, of course. And then we try on that new perspective for size. And if that new perspective doesn't work for us, we can always try another one.

 

But what will blow your mind, I mean, the reason this works so well is that most people don't realize that they can change their beliefs at all. They just say, well, this is who I am. This is what it is. The world is the way it is. And nothing could be further from the truth. The word that we you don't see reality clearly.

 

Daniel Sih: [48:04] It reminds me of Anne Lorray LeCompf's work on tiny experiments, which we do a lot in uh in in my productivity programs where people experiment with new behaviors, not to learn a habit, but simply to try something new, except what we're doing in this situation is we're experimenting with new forms of belief, which then obviously lead to experimental forms of behavior. So you're going one back in order to lead forwards. And uh, and I think that's what I love so much about your book. Yeah.

 

Nir Eyal: That the [48:32] beliefs are upstream of those behaviors that I can tell you exactly what to do, but you you won't do it for very long if you don't have the right beliefs installed.

 

Daniel Sih: It's been a complete pleasure and joy again to connect with you. Uh, I've loved your book. I recommend it highly to people. Congratulations on doing the deep dive for five years and really looking at this at a deep level. And I hope you experience, well, you know, it certainly helped my life, and I hope you'll see that story played out as a ripple effect in many other people's lives in what they believe. [49:00] I appreciate it.

 

Nir Eyal: And congrats on your book as well. I think wise AI is a perfect compliment to beyond belief because it essentially makes AI the belief, right? You talk about in your book about how uh how you look at AI will determine how you use it. If you believe it's going to take your job and it's a burden, you know, as you describe in the book, you're less likely to engage with it. So I I really enjoyed how it's very hand in glove with with my work as well.

 

Daniel Sih: Thank you so much for endorsing my book. Um what's an idea that came out of wise AI that you found useful?

 

Nir Eyal: [49:29] That it's not about the AI. It's about your beliefs about AI. That that to me was you know, it was ringing my bell right there because that that will determine what you get out of it.

 

Daniel Sih: And the way we approach AI is is not so much about the tool itself, but it's the way we approach it, uh, how we use it and and the bigger why behind it. That's exactly right. I love it.

 

Yeah, yeah. Well, look, thanks so much for coming on. I hope you continue to do really well in this space. And um until next time, I like to say make space. [49:59] Thanks, Thank you so much.

 

Narrator: The Spacemakers with Daniel Sih and Matt Bain.

 

Daniel Sih: Thanks to our generous sponsors, Bulk Nutrients and Fuller's Bookshop from our beautiful home state of Tasmania, the island of creativity, and of course, spacemaking.

 

Narrator: [50:18] If you feel busy, overloaded and struggling to keep up, The Spacemakers Dojo is here to help. This online community is for busy professionals like you, dedicated to making space together. Dive into the dojo to regain control of your time and make space in a supportive, accountable community. Visit spacemakers.au/dojo to find out more.